Activation of Long Term Archive (LTA) Access for Copernicus Sentinel-2 and 3

02 September 2019

Following the first year of operations of the Long Term Archive (LTA) Access interfaces for Copernicus Sentinel-1, the LTA interface will soon be operated for both Copernicus Sentinel-2 and 3.

This is part of the nominal routine to ensure the continued access to all Sentinel Data at all time. The Data Hub dissemination system continues to provide the unified access to all Copernicus Sentinel Data: the catalogue will continue to publish all data, the discovery and download interfaces (both the graphical user interface and API) will provide additional status information to indicate whether the products are online or offline.

Access to the product URL for data that are no longer available online will automatically trigger the retrieval of the data from the LTA, the download is initiated once the data are restored. Full details will be available in the updated User Guides which will provide specific information regarding the alignment of the Copernicus Sentinel-2 product metadata according to the latest product specification.

The latest year of Copernicus Sentinel data will be kept online at all times (18 months for Copernicus Sentinel-2 L2A). The retention period for the various different product types will be tuned according to the usage patterns to ensure efficient access to the most recent and frequently downloaded data, the precise retention period (always greater than one year) is subject to change according to the operational experience.

Systematic roll-out of the old Copernicus Sentinel-2 and 3 data will start from the middle of September.